Telangana: Mounting losses kill farmer couple

Hyderabad: Increasing debts forced a farmer couple to end their lives in Ranga Reddy district on Thursday night. Pendyala Mohanachari, 47, and his wife Saritha, 40, hanged themselves on their land. The couple left a three-page suicide note detailing their fight with debts. Mohanachari and his wife had started farming a decade ago but had turned to poultry and dairy due to losses.

Mohanachari and his wife Saritha hail from Rangapur village in Ranga Reddy district. The couple had 9.1 acres of assigned land. He had completed ITI and his wife graduation.

In his suicide note, Mohanachari said that after completing education he started growing Basmati and Sona Masuri paddy and chilli, but drought, unseasonal rains and attacks by peacocks and wild boars led to severe losses.

“Unable to continue farming I bought three HF cows and 12,000 chicks. I stopped poultry after losses and continued dairy. In 2014, took bank loans of '1.45 lakh by giving the lands of relatives as collateral and started sheep farming with 268 sheep,” he said in his suicide note.

But due to a virus attack in 2015, 164 sheep died and this pushed them into losses. They requested banks to give them grace period to repay loans. In addition, the bore wells went dry and it became difficult to maintain the livestock. So he started selling them to clear loans.

“We paid around '6.25 lakh and requested banks to extend the grace period and to help us with a fresh loan. But all our pleas were ignored. As a last attempt we visited Andhra Bank regional office to get the grace period extended but they said it cannot be done,”  Mohanachari wrote in the suicide note.

With no way out the couple hanged themselves on Thursday night. A milk vendor saw them on Friday morning alerted villagers. Based on a complaint from Mohan-achari’s brother Krishn-aiah a suspicious death case was registered.

Saritha was a commerce graduate and had a job in Oriental Bank of Commerce. She had resigned after marriage.